


I Didn't

by ninalanfer



Series: Nihlus the Survivalist [12]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M, post sovereign
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 12:59:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4101847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninalanfer/pseuds/ninalanfer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the destruction of Sovereign Saren and Nihlus relationship is as tender as can be. I had feels and this is the resulting drabble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Didn't

"You're a one armed, limping old man without a biotic amp!" Nihlus shouted down where Saren was sitting on the couch.

It made the already tenderized temper start to boil inside the old Spectre. Like having to wait for a rescue against the attempt on his life wasn't enough! _He_ , who had singlehandedly brought destruction and death in his wake for several decades. He, _Spectre Arterius_ , the longest surviving member of his profession for as long as anyone could remember. He had cheated death, survived Shanxi, broken the hold of a _Reaper_... And here his old student had the guts to tell him to sit back and relax while he did all the fighting? How _dared_ he?

"I had everything under control," Saren sneered in derision.

Nihlus twitched like someone had thrown a bucket of ice over him and went deadly still before Saren had a chance to realize what he had said. The younger turian took a step back and he could see how he shut down. His face washing out, his eyes going absent. Panic knotted Saren's chest together as he felt the fragile connection they so painstakingly had built over the last months shredded away as Nihlus pulled away from him.

_No! No, no, no, no!_ _Please no!_ Not when they finally had started to reconcile with each other. Not now! Please, don't let everything they had been through together be in wain. He _needed_ Nihlus, he was the only thing he had left in this forsaken world of destruction. The only thing that made sense anymore. The only reason he endured night after night with mind breaking nightmares and the endless hours of both physical and mental therapy that followed during the day. He couldn't do this without him, he just couldn't.

"I didn't... I..." he stammered, not quite sure what he was going to say, just knowing he had to say something or he would loose Nihlus forever. Without thinking, Saren reached out and grabbed the man's wrist, maybe in an attempt to physically stop him from pulling away.

Miraculously enough the younger turian came without any resistance. His movements like a doll without a mind of his own, the battle scarred face impossible to read. Saren pulled him down on the sofa next to him, wrapping his remaining arm around him and thrusted his brow plate against the warm, brown twin in pure desperation as he keened out his sorrow, his fear of letting go. Telling Nihlus all the words that he was incapable of saying out loud. How scared he had been that first time he woke up with an upgrade he didn't remember installing. How confused the old machine had made him, until he didn't know any longer if his thoughts even belonged to himself. But mostly he told him how _devastated_ he had been, how paralyzingly frightened he had felt, when he had seen the back of Nihlus head in his cross-hairs and been unable to lower the gun. Then all those months apart... Debating with himself in the quiet hours he was left alone in the dark if the young Spectre would ever want to see him again... And please, let him be forgiven for everything he had done during that time.

To his own big surprise he soon found the warm brow pressing back, and dear, good _Spirits_ he wasn't worthy of the affection he found in green, deep forests across the small distance. Nihlus should push him back and tell him off, call him names and swear to never again speak with him.

Saren wasn't prepared for this, the shivering man in his arm, with a voice all his own vibrating out a mirror of doubt and fear. Of all the words unspoken.

A quick tilt of the head and then Nihlus was kissing him, his strong hands leaving marks on his skin and clothes when they pulled him in. Saren tightened his hold on the wonderful body next to him, trying to get impossibly closer. So close, that anything less than inside his chest would be too far. They had spent too long apart already.

 


End file.
